Chapter 9 Part Two The Rose with Eyes Chapter Eight

After the shiny dust had settled, after the sky had cleared and the yard had been swept and the desert or the wind had absorbed what was left, news of another mystery reached Isaac's paddock. The dust is scary when it comes down, and when it stops it's the subject of endless conversation and speculation.The new mystery came in a more prosaic way, a news report relayed from the city on the other side of the mountain.Less immediately horrifying, but one that touched Isaac's secrets uncomfortably. He inadvertently heard Mr. Novony and Mr. Fisk discussing in the corridor outside the restaurant.Before the dust fell, commercial flights to the Rub Al Khali oil wasteland were either canceled or diverted for several days. Now, the interim government and the oil power plant jointly issued an explanation: there was an earthquake before.

This is absurd, Mr. Novony went on, because it is known that there are no faults in the underground in the area of ​​​​Rub al-Kari.It's a desert massif with fairly stable geology, unchanged for millions of years.There shouldn't even be a tremor beneath Rube al-Kari. It wasn't just tremors that happened.Oil production has been shut down for more than a week, and oil wells and pipelines have been severely damaged. We know less about this planet than we thought.Mr Novony said. To Isaac, it's less of a mystery.He knew (though he couldn't say why he knew) that something was moving beneath the calm sands of the deep western desert.He could feel it in his heart and in his body.Something was moving, speaking in a tone he didn't understand, and even though it was hundreds of kilometers away, half-awake in a sleep as long as the life of a mountain, he could point to it with his eyes closed.

☆ During and after the dust fall, everyone stayed indoors with their doors and windows closed for two full days, until Dr. Duvaly declared that the dust was harmless, and Mrs. Rebuka finally allowed Isaac to go out, at least To the paddock garden, as long as he wears a cotton mask.The yard was cleared, but there might still be residual fallout in the air, and she didn't want him breathing in particulate matter.He has to be safe, she said. Isaac agreed to wear a mask, though it made his mouth and nose sweaty and stuffy.What remained of the falling dust was only grains of slag, which accumulated on the brick walls and green wood railings.Standing in the relentless afternoon sun, Isaac rummages through a pile of dust with his hands bent.

According to Dr. Duvali, the fallout contained small fragments of broken machinery. Isaac doesn't see much of the debris left, but he likes the way it feels, and how it slides down his fingers like talcum powder on the palm of his hand.He squeezed the falling dust into a thin piece, and when he opened his palm, it melted into the air. Fallout flickered.Though Isaac knew it couldn't actually shine, it really shone, and it wasn't a light the eye could see, and he knew no one else in the paddock could see the light like he could.It was a different kind of light, felt in a different way.He misses Su Lian.Moy might be able to explain, if he could find a way to ask the question.

Isaac has a lot of questions he wants to ask Su Lian, but she has been busy since falling dust, usually in meetings with adults, and he has to bide his time. ☆ At dinner, Isaac noticed that when the grown-ups were discussing the falling dust or its causes, they would mostly ask Su Lianne the question.Moai.This surprised him, because for years he had believed that the grown-ups he lived with knew everything. Of course they are smarter than the average person.He couldn't say from direct experience because Isaac had never seen any normal people, but he'd seen normal people on videotapes and read books.The average person rarely talks about interesting things, and they often hurt each other brutally.Here in the paddock, conversations are occasionally tense, but arguments are never hurtful.Everyone is intelligent (or appears to be), everyone is calm (or trying to appear that way).Everyone is old except Isaac.

Su Lian.Moai is obviously not an ordinary person.Somehow, she knew more than other grown-ups.She was smarter than the people Isaac had always listened to, and, more puzzlingly, she didn't seem to like them very much.She put up with their questions politely though. Dr. Duvali said: Of course, hypothetical intelligent beings are involved in this.He was referring to Luochen, and then he asked Su Lian: Do you agree? It would be obvious to draw this conclusion.The old woman poked the bowl with a fork.In theory the adults take turns cooking, though a few more often volunteer to do it.Mr. Purcell is in charge of the kitchen this evening.Mr. Purcell is a geologist, but as a cook he is more than capable than he is.Isaac's vegetable bowl smelt horribly of garlic, canola oil, and burnt stuff.

Have you ever seen or heard of anything like this in your experience?Dr. Duvally asked. There is no official hierarchy among the adults in this group, but when major issues arise, Dr. Duvali takes the lead, and his statements count as soon as they are announced.His hair was all white and thin as silk, his eyes were large and brown, and his eyebrows were as untended as hedges.He had been keeping a close eye on Isaac.Isaac had always tolerated him with indifference.But recently, for unknown reasons, Isaac began to dislike him. Su Lian said: I have never seen exactly the same thing.But those of us over there have more experience with post-time-spinning worlds than you do, Dr. Duval.Strange things do fall from the sky from time to time.

Who are we over there?What heaven is she talking about? "What's missing from the Mars archives, most notably, is a discussion of the nature of hypothetical intelligent life," Dr Duvally said. Maybe it's because there's nothing substantial to say. You must have an opinion, Ms. Moai. The self-replicating devices that make up hypothetical intelligent beings are in many ways equivalent to living things.They will deal with their environment.Complex structures would be built out of rock and ice, and perhaps empty space, and the by-products would not be immune to the process of decay.Their actual structures age, decay, and are systematically replaced.This would explain the sediment fragments in the fallout.

The rotting machine fell upon us.Isaac thought. But that tonnage is spread over an area of ​​several square kilometers Is that amazing?Given the advanced age of a hypothetically intelligent being, a machine that disintegrates from the sky is no more startling than an organic mulch that can be produced in your garden. She sounded sure.But how could Su Lian know these things?Isaac decided to find out. ☆ That night, the swift southerly wind blew harder, and Isaac lay in bed, listening to the rattling of the window against the sash.Outside the glass windows, the stars were obscured by fine sand blown high from the wastelands of Rub El Khali.

Old, old, old: the universe is old and old.It produces many miracles, including hypothetical intelligent beings, especially Isaac himself, his body, his mind. Who is his father?Who is his mother?His teachers never really answered that question.Dr. Duvaly would say, you're not like other kids, Isaac.You are all of us.Or Mrs. Rebuka would say, we are all your parents.Although it was always Mrs. Rebuka who put him to bed, sure enough he ate and bathed.Yes, everyone here helped raise him, but when he pictured what it was like to have parents, he pictured Dr. Duvale and Mrs. Rebuka. Was it something that made him feel different from those around him?Yes, but not only that.His thinking is different from other people's thinking.Also, although he has many supporters, he has no friends except Su Lianne.Moy, maybe.

Isaac tried to sleep but couldn't.He was restless tonight, not a normal restlessness, more like an aimless desire.So after lying on the bed listening to the hot wind whistling and humming for several hours, he put on his clothes and left the room. It's past midnight.It was quiet here, the corridors and wooden chairs echoing his footsteps.Probably no one is awake now except Dr. Tyra.Dr. Tyra was a historian, and her best readings (he had heard her say) were late at night.But Dr. Tara was a pale, thin, quiet woman who, if she happened to be awake, would not have noticed Isaac strolling past her room.He walked from the living room downstairs to the courtyard outside without being seen. The gravel blown by the wind creaked under his feet.A tiny moon hung over the mountains to the east, casting a diffuse light through the dusty darkness.Isaac can see very clearly, he can move forward if he is careful, and he is so familiar with his surroundings that he can walk with his eyes closed.He opened the creaking gate on the yard fence and walked west.He let the unspeakable impulse lead him forward, let the wind take away his doubts. There are no roads here, just a stony desert and a series of low, winding mountains.The moon ahead aimed at his shadow like an arrow.But he was going in the right direction: he felt rightness in the center of his body, like the relief that comes with solving a tricky math problem.He deliberately dismissed the noise of his thoughts and focused on the sounds in the darkness: feet on sandpaper-like gravel, wind blowing, and small night creatures searching in the crevices of the ground.He walks in a state of blissful emptiness. He walked for a long time.I can't tell how long or how far I walked before I finally came to this rose.Rose woke him up suddenly. Is he sleepwalking?The moon, which had been hanging over the hills when I left the house, now illuminated the flat western horizon like a night watchman's lantern.Although the air was cooler at night, he felt hot and tired. He turned his eyes from the moon to the rose, which grew out of the desert at his feet. Roses are his parlance.The word came to his mind when he saw the thick stems standing on dry ground, the glassy crimson globes that would have been flowers in the moonlight. Of course, it's not a real flower.Flowers do not grow alone in dry deserts, nor are their petals made of what appear to be clear red crystals. Hello!Isaac said his voice sounded small and silly in the dark.what are you doing here? The rose, which had been slanting toward the moonlit west, turned swiftly toward him.There is an eye in the middle of the flower, a small black eye like obsidian, looking at him coldly at this moment. ☆ In the end it was Su Lian.Moy found him.Perhaps unsurprisingly, Isaac wasn't taken aback. It was a sweltering, windless morning when she came, and he sat on the ground, as if the desert were a big bowl, and he slid from above into the middle of the bowl.He put his elbows on his knees and rested his head on his hands.He heard her coming, but he didn't look up.No need, he had hoped that she would come to him. Isaac.Su Lian.Moy said her voice was raw but gentle. He didn't answer. Everyone is worried about you.They searched everywhere, she said. sorry. She put one of her thin hands on his shoulder.What made you come all this way from home?What are you looking for? I have no idea.He compared to the rose.But I found this. Su Lian knelt down to watch.She knelt down slowly, and her old knees made a crackling sound. The roses were battered by the sun, their dark green stems bent in the morning.The crystalline orb no longer shone, and the eye lost its luster.Something alive last night, Isaac thought, now seemed dead. Su Lian stared at it thoughtfully for a long time, then asked: What is this, Isaac? I have no idea. Is that what you came here for? No I think not.This answer is not complete.For roses, yes, but not just roses but what roses represent. So strange!She said, are we going to tell people about this?Isaac, or do we keep it a secret? He shrugged. Um.We have to go back, you know. I know. He didn't mind leaving, and Rose couldn't last long anyway. Would you like to come with me? ok if i could ask you some questions good.I wish I could answer.I will try my best. So they turned away from the rose with eyes, and started walking eastward at the old woman's pace.Isaac began to talk out all the uncertain questions that entered his mind, especially the rose itself, and Su Lian was always patient.Although he didn't sleep, he didn't feel tired either.He was wide awake, never more sober, and more curious. Where are you from?finally he asked. The rhythm of her walk vibrated.For a moment he thought she would not answer. Then, she said: I was born on Mars. This feels like truth.It wasn't the answer he expected, and he sensed that she would want him not to reveal it.Isaac listened in silence.Mars, he thought. After a while, he asked: How much do you know about hypothetical intelligent beings? This is strange.The old woman said she smiled slightly and looked at him with what he thought was affection.I came all the way here just to ask you about this! ☆ They talked until noon, when they had reached the paddock, and Isaac learned many new things from these conversations.Then, before going through the gate, he stopped and looked the way he had come.Roses are far away, but not just roses.Just what are roses?A sporadic fragment of something huge. It was something that deeply interested him, and it interested him.